Significantly team favouring York run

Ayr Gold Cup winner set to skip Ascot on Saturday.

Ayr Gold Cup winner Significantly is likely to sidestep a rise in grade at Ascot this weekend and instead wait for the Coral Sprint Trophy at York on Saturday week.

Revitalised by the Julie Camacho team, Significantly was agonisingly beaten in the Portland Handicap over five and a half furlongs at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting, but gained compensation seven days later at Ayr.

He almost missed out again there with Joe Fanning looking for a run with a furlong to go, but when the gap came he quickened up smartly.

While connections were tempted by a crack at the John Guest Racing Bengough Stakes, the fact he would be getting only 3lb from the likes of 113-rated Commanche Falls and the 110-rated Garrus leaves Significantly, still only on a handicap mark of 98, with plenty to find.

“He’s fit and well but I would imagine that unless the race cuts up badly, we’d wait a week and go to York,” said Steve Brown, Camacho’s husband and assistant.

“It just makes more sense to run in a handicap off his current mark. There are some good solid performers in at Ascot. We were entitled to enter and have a look but realistically we might just wait a week – and it’s worth more money.

“The other thing we might have been tempted to go to Ascot had the ground been softer but at the minute it looks like being a decent week weather-wise whereas he thrives when the ground is softer.

“I know there were one or two unlucky horses at Ayr but I think if we’d have got a run earlier he would have been a bit more of a clear-cut winner than he was.

“He’s thriving at home, his confidence levels are high. Karl (Burke, former trainer) always said he had a high level of ability and was a decent horse when he was younger, they are clever people and ran him in some big races, they don’t do that unless they think they are worthy.

“Last season was a quiet one for him, as any horse can havem but I think he’s back to the level he showed for Karl.”

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